


gang of rhythm

by ohthelinsanity



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: I'll add more people later, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:22:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1544150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohthelinsanity/pseuds/ohthelinsanity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>drabble series, multi-pairing; (06: Blackboard) Levi's not the best artist, but that doesn't mean Eren's got to be a dick about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. eren & mikasa: evidence

"What the  _fuck_ is this?"

Armin looks up from his book and vaguely wonders if Eren is going to make fun of his "Walden reading, transcendentalism worshipping, nerdy-as-fuck  _ass."_  But instead he sees Eren staring at him with those big old green eyes, intense as ever, shaking with whatever anger has sparked in his heart today.

Except when he notices what he's holding, Armin realizes it's probably not anger he's shaking from, but  _fear_ ; which is weird because Armin isn't entirely sure he's ever seen Eren scared. He concluded it was written out of his genetic code, especially when they were eight years old and Eren just picked up a cottonmouth because he thought they actually had cotton in their mouths.

But looking at the small stick in Eren's hand, Armin completely sympathizes with this newfound fear.

"It's a pregnancy test," Armin says calmly because for once, this isn't going to have to be a problem he's going to have to solve. Hopefully. Right?

Eren stares back at it, looking at the small screen that indicates the test results. He shakes it a few times. "Are you sure?" he asks.

"Well it's not a magic eight ball," Armin bites his lip to keep from laughing. "You shaking it isn't going to change whatever's on there." He cranes his head, trying to get a look. "What's it say?"

"I don't know," Eren grouches, "I mean, it's got two little pink lines on it." He pauses, his face a picture of grim horror. "Does that mean she's having  _twins!?"_ and he chokes a little on his own spit.

Armin rolls his eyes. "No, that's not what it means. What's the box say two lines mean?"

"Uhhh," Eren pats around his pockets, as if the answer would be in his jeans. "The box!" he runs back to his bathroom and Armin can hear him fishing through the trash. "Ah, found it!" Eren's voice carries through the hallway, clear as day. "Okay, two lines means—"

Then Armin heard the sound of Eren's head hitting the side of the porcelain toilet.

"Eren? Eren!" Armin rushes into the bathroom and picks his friend up off the bathroom floor. He leans him up against the bathtub and checks his head for contusions; none. Eren's still conscious, but barely, his eyes roaming and his head lolling around on his neck. Armin holds his hand in front of Eren's face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"A baby."

"Two. Close enough." With a sigh, Armin leans back and runs a hand through his hair. "So, Mikasa's pregnant."

Eren's tanned skin looks abnormally pale. "Yup." He groans and buries his face in his hands. "I can't believe this."

Armin can't help it, he laughs, ignoring the dirty look Eren throws him. "Oh, you're completely overreacting!"

"Am I, Armin? Am I? How are two teenagers supposed to raise a kid?"

"You're both twenty-three."

"We're going to be ridiculed, judged by society—"

"You're  _married."_

"Oh my god, her dad is going to  _kill_ me."

"He died  _fifteen years ago_!"

Eren isn't fazed by anything Armin is saying. "We're a statistic." He notes solemnly, and Armin rolls his eyes so hard he thinks they might fall out of his head. What does that even  _mean?_ "We're doomed to be a horrific representation—"

Armin silences him with a smack across the face.

"Jeez, what is wrong with you?" Armin admonishes. "You're having a  _baby!_ You  _love_ kids, you've always wanted them! And what, just because it's come a little earlier than you expected, you get  _scared?"_

Eren wiggles uncomfortably under Armin's reprimanding gaze. "I'm not scared—I never get scared."

"That's what I'm saying! You're Eren Jaeger!"

"Yeah!"

"You don't get scared! You're tough! You're brave!"

"Yeah!"

"You pick up cottonmouths with your bare hands!"

"Yeah!—oh, fuck off!" He cries, laughing as he pushes Armin away from him. "Jean told me they had actual cotton in their mouths, I had to check it out."

Armin just hums in agreement. "Right right…" He looks over and sees something else he's not used to seeing when it comes to Eren—calmness. "It's gonna be great, Eren. Nothing to be worried about."

He sighs, a great big one that shrugs his shoulder up to his ears. "Yeah, you're right." He smiles as Armin offers a hand to help them off the floor. "Nothing to worry about."

"Nope."

"I can handle this."

"Heck yeah you can."

"It's gonna be great."

"Totally."

The two of them hear the front door of Eren's apartment unlocking , followed by Mikasa shouting. "Eren, I'm home!"

Armin rolls his eyes as Eren faints, his head hitting the side of the porcelain toilet.


	2. bert & annie: I'm here

To say Annie is self-destructive seems like an understatement.

It's not like Eren; he's bright and happy and absolutely ruthless with his physical safety, constantly pushing the limits of his body until they bruise or burn or  _break_. But Eren doesn't mind the slings and the casts and the crutches because that damn boy walks around with a smile on his face and a story racing across his lips about how he was sure there were new colors hidden in the waves of waters he hasn't swim in yet.

Annie doesn't have any stories Bertholdt wants to tell.

He picks her off the floor when she's had too much to drink, makes her food when she forgets to eat. His fingers know the back of her throat all too well, knows the colors that spin in the toilet bowl when she's taken too many pills. He knows just enough to keep her alive, and he hates seeing someone so beautiful be torn down by something so ugly.

One day he wakes to find her missing, and his heart skips a few beats while his stomach clenches and aches. Hours go by and there's no sign of her and he want to cry, does cry, until she shows up at the door well into the early morning.

There's a shiner on her eye, along with other bruises in every color imaginable. It's the most color he's seen in her face for months, and it breaks him. Her lip is split open and there's dried blood clogging up her nostrils, her nose no doubt broken. Her hand presses to her stomach, fingers clutching over maroon stained fabric. Bertholdt swallows his fear and guides her to the bathroom where he sets her down on the toilet lid before he fishes out a first aid kid and starts cleaning her up.

He doesn't say anything—he never does. They are always silent, the questions elephants in the room. But as he wipes the blood from her cheek, she speaks.

"I'm sorry."

Bertholdt pauses, washcloth hovering over her wounds for a split second before he continues, shoulder sagging with a small sigh. He doesn't know what to say; lifting her chin, he inspects her nose. He wants to take her to the hospital, but he knows she'll protest.

"I wanted to feel alive." She shrugs, like what she says doesn't break his heart.

"You are alive," he says shortly. He runs cool water under another cloth and places it over her bruising eye.

"I'm sure I don't look it," she grunts, pressing her hand to her aching stomach. Tentatively, he pries her hand away from her side and lifts her shirt up, murmuring apologies. There's a nasty gash there that probably needs stitches.

"Annie…"

"I'm sorry."

"I know you are. It's okay. You don't have to keep apologizing."

"Why?" she asks, voice barely heard. "You always say that. Why do you keep saying that?"

He looks up and sees her face and knows it's the closest she'll ever get to crying in front of him. "I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to be  _happy_. And while going out and picking fights isn't what I had in mind, it means you're still  _trying._ And while you're still trying, I'll be here to help."

She sniffs. "You're foolish, you know that?"

"No," He leans up and kisses her forehead, slowly and gently. "You're worth it."

"Bertholdt?"

"Hmm?"

"…Maybe we should go to the hospital."

"I think that's a good idea."


	3. eren & jean: funeral

Jean doesn't always like to admit it, but he loves Eren. So watching him die isn't easy.

Jean always figured Eren would go out with a bang, quite literally. Cracking his head from an impossible height, running blindly into a busy street, taking a bullet for a stranger, anything that was loud, messy, bloody, and most likely reported on the evening news. At the least, if he wasn't blown up at a tragically young age, Jean was sure Eren would live well past 100, too stubborn to let death take the forest of life that is the green tucked in his irises.

But instead Eren Jeager is 22 and full of cancerous cells that pale his skin, hollow out his cheeks, and steal the hair off his head. The green is still there, albeit deforested, but Eren's still awake enough for Jean to count how many rings he sees in the trunks of those dying trees.

It's not many.

Watching Eren die isn't easy, particularly when he tells Jean he doesn't want a funeral.

"It doesn't matter," Jean tells him, "You won't be dying anytime soon," and he prays Eren will drop it.

Eren repositions himself in the hospital bed and the frown that stretches across his mouth is ugly, but that is nothing new. "I mean it. I don't want one. Funerals are awful."

"Wow you don't say."

Huffing, Eren leans back into his pillows, and Jean immediately leans out of his bedside seat to adjust them for him without complaint. "Remember when my dad left?" Jean hums in agreement and leans back into his chair once more. "It was what, four years before they found it he had died? I remember, I thought I'd be relieved that the mystery was over but it was just…sad. I was sad, and I was angry. Because he was finally, completely gone."

Jean stares.

"Funerals are goodbyes," Eren continues to explain. "And once you say goodbyes, you're allowed to forget. Completely."

"Funerals are peace," Jean emphasizes and he wonders if he would be able to continue on in life without attending Eren's funeral. He was right, they were goodbyes. He couldn't bear to leave Eren without a goodbye.

"I don't want you to forget me," Eren admits sheepishly, shrugging his shoulder. "I know I'm going to be gone, but I want it to be just barely, you know? Like when my dad left. Quietly and without notice. Like I could come back tomorrow."

"Eren," and Jean chokes on his name. He leans forward and kisses his forehead. "No one could forget you," and when he looks into Eren's eyes he realizes how quiet the world will be without him, how dull everything will become.

Eren smiles, and Jean knows the world will lose a shade of green when his eyes close for the last time.


	4. sasha & connie: puppy love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> coffee shop au

He's only ever seen her order a vanilla latte with extra whip cream under the name "Sasha" but that's enough for Connie to fall completely in love with her.

Working at Starbucks isn't exactly "fun" as much as it is "torture." You got your suits that come in at 7 am that are running late because little Sally and little Mary Ann wouldn't eat their bowl of Coco Puffs and then Daddy Dearest had to drive them school in his BMW and they were late and because his life is so hard if this cappuccino doesn't have exactly 3 squirts of pumpkin spice in it, there's gonna be a problem.

Stuff like that.

But Sasha makes it worth it.

Connie doesn't really know why Sasha comes to the shit hole that is Starbucks twice a week on Wednesdays and Fridays, but he's glad she does. The first day she walked in wearing a pair of worn overalls with splashes of red paint down the left leg. Her hair matches her honey eyes and he had to remember to close his mouth when he took her order.

After that, he bribes his coworkers Marco and Annie five dollars each to let him take her order every time she came in. Each time, he tries to get a new piece of information out of her—she is a college dropout, she works as a landscaper, and she grew up on a farm. Once he figures out her routine, he memorizes new jokes the night before in hopes to get a laugh out of her. She snorts when she laughs, and Connie thinks it's the cutest fucking thing he's ever fucking heard.

There isn't much reason for him to like her as much as he does, but Connie doesn't really care. She's got calloused fingers, the worst farmers tan, and the world's sweetest tooth for their chocolate chip muffins.

He has it bad.

One day, he decides to be a little brave. She walks in wearing the overalls he saw her in before, splashes of white added to the red. He grabs the cup and scribbles her name on it. Annie reaches for the cup to make the latte, but Connie stops her. "I'll make it this morning." Annie is confused until she notices the inscription on the cup—she rolls her eyes, but lets him make the damn coffee.

Two minutes later, Connie clears his throat and says "One vanilla latte for the prettiest girl I've ever seen."

Sasha blushes to match the red paint on her overalls and laughs.

She slips her number in the tip jar before she leaves.


	5. armin & mikasa: glove

Eren's new friend is…different.

Armin hasn't seen anyone in Shigashina that looks like her; everything about her looks different, from the shape of her eyes to the undertones in her skin. She's pretty, for a girl, he guesses. Eren introduces her not only has his new friend, but goes as far as to say his new  _sister_ , which confuses him a little because she looks nothing like any of the townspeople, let alone the Jaegers. He wants to know why she ended up here.

But Armin has a little more tact than Eren and holds his tongue. He pats the space of grass littered with autumn leaves beside him. "Hi! I'm Armin. Come and sit..."

"Mikasa," Eren supplies when Mikasa shies away from the two of them, covering up her nose with what used to be Eren's scarf. He nudges her gently. "Hey," and Armin is surprised to hear his brash friend so gentle. "You like stories?"

She nods slowly.

"Well, Armin's the best at storytelling. I don't read as well as him. He's got this book—" Eren points to the book in Armin's lap, currently opened somewhere near the end, "—full of stories. He's not supposed to have it, so you have to keep it a secret, okay?"

She nods again and Eren grins. He goes to sit on one side of Armin and when Mikasa goes to sit on the other side of Eren, he frowns. "No, no, go sit next to Armin!" He encourages. "There's pictures in the book, you'll want to look along." At her hesitation, Eren sighs. "Look, Mikasa, I told you. Armin's  _nice."_

Armin puts on his best smile. "They're really pretty illustrations."

Finally, Mikasa goes to sit on Armin's other side, and he begins his tale of magical fish people that live in these places called oceans, far beyond the wall. At first, Mikasa is very rigid, but as he progresses, she slowly leans into him, and when he's finishing up the last of the story, she's resting her head on his shoulder.

The routine continues most days for a few weeks while the weather isn't too cold. One day, Armin thinks it would be a nice change to hear Mikasa read. She doesn't speak much, and he wonders if fairytales would bring something out of her. But at his suggestion, she shakes her head violently, and that's the end of that.

On the last crisp autumn day, Mikasa approaches alone, which surprises Armin; he was under the impression she didn't like him very much. "Where's Eren?" he asks, looking around.

"He's sick," Mikasa explains softly, taking a seat beside him.

"Oh. You still want me to read to you?" She's silent, and he pokes her. "Mikasa?"

"Actually, can you do me a favor?"

He blinks. "Oh, sure. What is it?"

She reaches over in his lap and grabs the book. She fingers through the story until she spots an illustration from the first story he ever read to her, about the sea people. "Can you….teach me how to read?"

Of all the requests, Armin wasn't expecting that one. "You don't know how to read?" Honestly, her parents should have taught her by now; her old ones, or the Jaegers.

"Not in this language."

He doesn't get it. "This language?"

"A language is...different words for different things. I can speak two languages, but I can only read in the one my mother taught me—her language."

Armin's read a lot of books but he never read anything about another "language." He can't imagine speaking in anything than the words he already knows. It's a hard concept to swallow. "Can you…?"

She seems to pick up his confusion. She looks around her for a moment, fiddling with her coat, before she makes a noise of affirmation, grabs Armin's hand, and says, " _Tebukuro."_

His eyes widen at the sound. It's beautiful. "What's that mean?"

She smiles crookedly and slips his winter glove off his hand, waving it around. "Glove."

"Oh," He stares down at the open book. None of the words in his book come remotely close to sounding like what she just said. "What's it look like on paper? You know, in ink?"

Mikasa glances at the book, quirks her lips to the side. "Looks a lot different than these words. You might think it looks funny, I guess." Picking up a stick, she brushes away the dead leaves and starts to dig into the soft dirt, etching out the word. Mikasa draws the lines very slowly, and her hand moves like brush strokes on a painting—it isn't skittish and rushed the way he writes.

手袋

"Wow," Armin breathes, staring at the lines. "It looks really pretty."

"I'd teach you to write it," she starts to say, "But I didn't take any of my books when I moved here…"

He doesn't like to hear her so sad. "That's okay!" And he realizes he sounds a little too anxious and hasty. But Mikasa seems to ease anyhow, so it's worth it. "Maybe one day we'll find some. And you can teach me then."

"I can teach you how to say a few things," she remedies. She pats the book in her lap. "If you teach me how to read this language first."

He laughs behind pursed lips. "Deal. Now, which story did you want to start with?"

"The mermaid one."

Armin makes some sort of soft noise in protest. "That one's kinda hard right off the bat."

"I wanna learn the mermaid one."

"Mikasa—"

"Mermaids, Armin."

"Okay, okay, jeez. Let's start with the first sentence…"

.

.

When the first snow arrives weeks later, Eren isn't slow to throw all three of them outside for winter's first snowball fight. It's a rough, cold day, where Armin spends more time with snow in his hair than he would have liked, but it passes in fun and laughs all the same. He's about to head home when Mikasa stops him halfway down the street.

"Armin!" Mikasa shouts, jogging up to him, Eren on her heel.

"What?"

She waves one of his gloves above her head. He looks down and realizes one of the snow-soaked gloves had indeed fallen out of his pocket.

" _Tebukuro_ ," she says, and she smiles, walking over to stuff into his empty pocket.

He takes a deep breath and rolls his tongue in his mouth a few times, determined not to mess it up. He looks into her coal colored eyes.

" _Arigato_ , Mikasa."

Eren gives them book strange looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my favorite ever omg. also i trust google translate is good for at least one thing


	6. levi & eren: blackboard

"I don't look like that."

Levi closes his eyes and takes a deep breath all while reminding himself that the only way he's allowed to kill this kid is if he's an out of control titan. "I don't care," Levi says plainly, and hopes that Eren will drop it and they can go back to the strategy meeting that Eren will, inevitably, ignore anyhow.

From across the room, Jean grins. "Looks pretty accurate to me," he says smugly and a small voice in Levi's head says that while killing Eren isn't an option, killing Jean might be something he can get away with.

Eren looks torn between clobbering Jean and looking rightfully scared of the lance corporal; overall, a constipated look, in Levi's opinion. Eren stares at the blackboard with Levi's crude drawing of his titan form. "Why," Eren puffs out his cheeks, looking torn on whether or not to continue. Levi really wishes he'd choose not to so they could get on with their day. "Why did you draw me with cat ears?"

What a dumb fucking question. "Your ears are pointy in your titan form."

Expression shifting from confused to mortified, Eren looks to Mikasa for confirmation. She crosses her legs in her chair and gives him an apologetic look. "They do kind of look like that."

Jean laughs and Armin kicks him in the shin under the table.

Levi really wants a cup of tea.

"Okay," Eren amends, reluctantly accepting the answer. "But what about the teeth? Do they stick out like that?"

"Afraid so."

Eren whines. "Are you sure it looks that bad? Or are you just exaggerating in the drawing?"

Levi groans. "Who fucking cares? It's a drawing on a blackboard, not some fucking portrait set to be hung in the king's palace you idiot. I'm just trying to explain the plan."

His cheeks grow red. "It's  _distracting"_ he squeaks out pathetically.

"Fine." Levi grabs the eraser and erases the ears on his crude drawing of Eren and replaces them with obnoxiously round ones. "Better?"

"No!" Eren wails, hopping up and down and flailing his arms helplessly. "I look like a clown."

"You  _are_ a clown." Jean mumbles, and Levi totally agrees.

"Look, I'm not the best artist, okay?" Levi admits, hoping that this unnecessary comment will knock his temper down a few notches. "I'm only trying to explain formations. So please Eren. Shut up and just _listen."_

Mikasa extends her foot and taps Eren on the leg, giving him a calm smile; he simmers down almost instantly. "Okay, okay, sorry," He glances at the blackboard one more time. "Just one more thing."

The room, save Mikasa, collectively groans.

"…is my hair that scraggly as a titan?"

Levi's going to kill him.


End file.
